Iran and the Arab countries have been involved in a long-running geographical naming dispute over what has been historically and internationally known as the Persian Gulf. Connected to the Gulf of Oman and thereby to the Arabian Sea through the Strait of Hormuz, it is an extension of the Indian Ocean. In the Western world, the Gulf's namesake is Persia, which is Iran's Western exonym. The name of the Persian Gulf was not contested at a high level until the popularization of Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism around the 1960s, when the Arab countries increasingly sought to suppress Iranian influence in the Middle East and on the international stage. Thus, the toponym "Arabian Gulf" or simply "Gulf" was adopted and asserted by Arab governments and Arab media, led by the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf. On the other hand, Iran and Iranian media have asserted the name "Persian Gulf" exclusively.

The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. It is connected to the Gulf of Oman in the east by the Strait of Hormuz. The Shatt al-Arab river delta forms the northwest shoreline.